


Chasing The Sun

by nesrynfaliq



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, bathing fic, post acomaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7754146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nesrynfaliq/pseuds/nesrynfaliq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set midst ACOTAR 3, war is brewing and Elain helps to prepare Lucien for battle while being terrified of losing him. </p><p>She’s never felt anything so fiercely as she feels her love for him now. She was never one to rage and burn and howl defiance at the world. That had always been Nesta. She had only ever endured, quiet and unassuming, a gentle blossom finding a way to grow between the cracks in a paving stone. But for him, for Lucien, for the love for him that consumes her she feels fire blaze up inside her soul –his fire- filling her with warmth and light and life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Calm

 

Pushing up the left sleeve of her gown again as it makes another hopeful bid back down to its proper place around her wrists Elain dips the jug back into the bath and tips it gently over Lucien’s head. Obligingly, he keeps still as she combs her fingers slowly through his hair, helping the water sluice the soap from it.

Elain smiles, admiring the way the light catches in her mate’s burning copper hair. Her mate. Even now, several weeks after accepting the bond with him, Elain’s stomach still flutters pleasantly at that thought, making it feel as though someone has released a cloud of butterflies inside her every time she thinks about it.

Lucien notes her expression and no doubt feels her reaction through their bond because a soft smile brushes his lips, stretching the brutal scar on his face. His hand lifts from the bath, beads of moisture clinging to his finger tips like liquid jewels before he lightly brushes her cheek.

This little display of affection from him is enough to make her smile again and a moment later she’s pressing yet another gentle kiss to his lips. She just can’t help herself. She had been warned of experiencing a certain _frenzy_ in the wake of their mating but while they had spent quite some time in bed there hadn’t been anything entirely frenzied about what they’d done – which Elain had been glad of.

But she just can’t seem to stop kissing him whenever she has the chance. The feel of his soft lips against hers, the scent of them swirling through the air around her, the happiness that swells in her chest every time...A part of her is quite sure she’ll never be able to stop it. Even though she still can’t quite wrap her head around the idea of living for _centuries,_ somehow it’s not so difficult to imagine kissing Lucien through every single one of them.  

“Not to rush you,” Lucien murmurs onto her lips, “Because this is wonderful,” he smirks wryly, lightly rubbing noses with her before he says, “But I’m turning into a prune.”

He holds up a hand for her inspection and she sees that it’s perfectly true. The sight of the pads of his fingers looking more like raisins than anything makes her giggle. Her inability to keep from kissing him every few moments has drawn this bath out and caused him to have to reheat the water several times over.

But if it were possible she would never let him leave this moment. He’s safe here and happy and she’s loathe to let him go when that might change; when everything might change.

Bracing her hands on her hips she pushes those thoughts away as she narrows her eyes and tries to sound stern when she says, “Are you criticising my bathing skills, sir?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, dove,” Lucien replies, eyes wide, with such forced sincerity that she giggles again in spite of herself.

A soft gasp bursts from her as she feels a sudden cold blush against her neck – Lucien’s fingers curling into the front of her dress and coaxing her down to him. She obliges and he kisses her again, soft and slow.

“But,” he adds as he withdraws with obvious reluctance, “If I could get out of this bath some time this month I would be grateful.”

In answer Elain dunks her jug into the water and promptly dumps its contents over him without warning. Lucien emerges from the torrent of water sputtering and shakes his head like a dog, spraying her with water and causing her to squeal in protest and jump back.

Approaching him again with a little warning growl to tell him to behave himself Elain settles herself at his back and continues her rinsing, combing her fingers slowly and luxuriously through his silken hair until he groans and leans back into her touch.

Lying almost horizontally, face appearing upside down to her he says, “You’re very good at that you know.” She presses a swift kiss to his lips then nudges him upright again so she can finish what she’s doing, shaking her head slightly at him, though another smile tugs at her lips in response to his antics.

Through the sleek, wet curtain of his red hair her fingers sometimes can’t help brushing against the crisscrossing patterns of scars on his back. The laughter that had been blooming in her chest dies and strips the smile from her lips along with it each time she does so.

She’s grown used to his scars since their mating – there isn’t an inch of his body that she’s unfamiliar with any more – the physical ghosts of the violence he’s endured that patterns his skin don’t usually bother her but today...Today.

Lucien shifts slightly, sensing the change in her mood but before he can say anything about it she blurts out faintly, “Do you have to go?”

A stupid, childish question but she can’t help herself. It’s been gnawing away at her all day, the words circling around and around in her head like gore crows over a killing field. Lucien freezes in response to them, his body taking on that immortal stillness she still hasn’t managed to achieve and doubts she ever will.

But in spite of that she stumbles on, mechanically continuing the rinsing of his hair as she does so, as though she can anchor herself to reality with them, as though they can keep her from falling apart. The repetitive motions are soothing, something to cling to as panic flares and her world, the one she’s only just learned how to live in, how to love, pitches violently and tears itself out from beneath her.

“I hate the thought of it,” she gets out through gritted teeth, voice brittle.

It’s a thought that’s kept her awake these past few nights – nights she’s spent just watching him sleep, softly running her fingers through his hair, listening to the steady rhythm of his deep breathing – a sound that’s come to be one of her favourites in this world – one she’s not sure she knows how to live without any more.

Everything about them feels so _right_ to her. She’s never been this sure of anything before in her life. She let Feyre and Nesta be stubbornly and defiantly sure about it all while she just did her best to manage, to adapt to whatever new circumstances were thrown her way, doing what she could to just get on, whether she knew exactly what was happening to them or not. But this she’s sure of. _Him_ she’s sure of. Their souls were forged to be together and losing that, losing him...

Her mind has dwelled on it for days. Lucien, _her_ Lucien, in a battle, in a _war_. Fighting and bleeding and – She closes her eyes, shaking herself, fists clenching tightly as she refuses to finish that thought and instead says, “I can’t stand it, Lucien, I can’t.”

“I know,” he murmurs quietly, such a profound sense of empathy in his words that she opens her eyes.

A flutter from the bond communicates his wants to her and she shifts to his side again so he can see her.

Reaching out he takes her hand in his and kisses it, massaging her knuckles with his thumb. “I know,” he says again, looking into her eyes this time, cupping her cheek tenderly in his hand. “But I have to go,” he murmurs and she swallows, nestling in to his touch. “This is war Elain and I, I have to fight,” he tells her. She closes her eyes, burying in against his neck, trying not to tremble, to be strong, like Feyre.

”For you,” he whispers faintly and she opens her eyes again to meet his. She finds them blazing and fierce and determined despite the fear she feels radiating from him, “And for all the people in these lands that I promised to serve and protect.”

He had made that same oath to Tamlin and however the High Lord had abused it, and him, he still feels guilty about breaking the vow. He won’t do so again, she knows. And she can’t ask him to but...

Continuing her absent washing of him, just wanting to touch him, wanting to physically connect them, she says, “I want to go with you.” She feels him flinch in response to that but she looks up, making him meet her eyes. “I’m your  mate,” she says, hating the tears that suddenly line her eyes and clog her throat, making her voice wobble when she so wants it to be stern and sure and defiant, like Nesta’s is when she growls at the world and orders it to shape itself to her will.

 “I’m your _mate_ ,” she says again, slapping the surface of the water with her palm in frustration, “I should be with you – to keep you safe – to bring you home-“She breaks off, turning away so he can’t see how upset she is, though she knows he can likely sense it through their bond in spite of that.

The feel of his hand on hers is the only thing that stops her shaking.

“You can’t,” he says, his voice, usually always tinted with that playful irreverent edge is now heartbreakingly gentle. But that hint of humour drifts back in when he adds wryly, “It just wouldn’t be fair to the other side,” she looks up at him, blinking away her tears in bemusement, “You’d wipe the floor with them, plum, we have to give them half a chance.”

He winks at her and she can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips in spite of everything. Dipping her hand into his bath she trails her fingers through it pensively for a few moments then withdraws them and flicks water from the ends of her fingers at him in mild reproach. That makes him smile too, his scar stretching slightly and his eyes crinkling in that way they do.

Surging forwards unexpectedly Elain takes his face between her hands and kisses him again, open and rough and messy as love for him burns through her so fiercely she knows if she doesn’t do this, doesn’t do _something_ , it will consume her entirely. So she does this, she kisses him as hard as she can – a claim on him, her mate, her partner, her home- and he allows it and responds in kind.

Breathing heavily as she pulls away she drags her fingers through his hair, just to anchor herself to some part of him.

“I’m scared, Lucien,” she breathes onto his lips, her eyes closed, her forehead pressed against his.

Selfish. Selfish of her to make him think of that, of her fears, on the eve of a battle that might very well hurt him or maim him or kill him- She chokes on the very thought of it. But whatever dangers he might face or fears that might plague him she needs him. She needs to hear him reassure her. She needs his words to wrap around her and make her feel alright. Even if it’s all lies she just needs to hear him say that they’ll get through this. Somehow.

“If you’re hurt-“she whispers, pressing in as close as she can to him with the copper tub in the way, breaking off, struggling to former her tumultuous thoughts into words. His hand tangles in her hair, resting on her cheek again, thumb softly stroking her skin, trying to soothe and calm her, “If you don’t come back to me- If I lose you-“

Her voice breaks on that last word, that last awful suggestion and he stands abruptly from the bath at the sound, unable to bear it. She watches the water run in rivulets down his lean, muscled body, drinking in every inch of him.

As he steps from the tub she rises to her feet too to meet him as he steps to her. Hooking his fingers under her chin he coaxes her to lift her eyes from the floor to look at him, “Everything will be all right,” he whispers, so sincerely that she believes him for a few heartbeats, believes that it will be, that he would stop this whole war then and there with nothing but his love and his promise and his will to make it so for her.

He raises his hands and holds her face gently between them. Pressing a soft kiss to her forehead he says, “It will be all right. I’ll be fine. I’ll come back. I’ll come home to you, Elain. You will never lose me.”

“You promise me?” she breathes, trembling at his touch, at the mere thought of its impossible absence.

A promise. A vow to her – binding as the mating bond that tethers their souls – one it’s unfair of her to ask him to make, one he can’t have any way of knowing he can keep but she needs it. Even if it’s as hollow and empty as her heart would be without him. She needs it.

“Promise me,” she says again, not a question this time but a request, a plea, a prayer to him.

“I promise,” he whispers.

The reverberations of that oath shudder to her down their bond – the depth of it, the sincerity within in it, for her, staggers her.

Without hesitation she flings herself into his arms and embraces him, feeling him lift her clean off the floor against his body. This male. Her mate. A few months ago he likely wouldn’t have cared if he came back at all; wouldn’t have thought it mattered. But for her he’d promise this, so strongly she still feels it pulsing in her core right alongside their bond.

She’s never felt anything so fiercely as she feels her love for him now. She was never one to rage and burn and howl defiance at the world. That had always been Nesta. She had only ever endured, quiet and unassuming, a gentle blossom finding a way to grow between the cracks in a paving stone. But for him, for Lucien, for the love for him that consumes her she feels fire blaze up inside her soul – _his_ fire- filling her with warmth and light and life.

She meets his lips as they descend to claim hers in a rough kiss. She doesn’t care that he’s still soaked through; doesn’t care that water is plastering her dress to her; doesn’t give a damn about any of it. All she wants is him. Her body craves his. Her skin needs his touch. Her mouth demands his tongue. Her soul calls for his everything. And he gives it to her.

Lifting her securely in his arms he carries her from the bathing room to the adjoining bedroom. The moment he sets her down, so carefully, letting her find her feet before he releases her like always, she takes charge.

Following the mix of urges barrelling into her body from both the mating bond and her own deep, primal instincts she reaches up to him. Her hand slides around behind his neck and draws him down to her. Kissing him she presses herself against him and nudges him back, coaxing him to take step after step until he hits the bed behind them. Then she pushes him gently down onto it.

He obliges her, sinking down onto the soft mattress but stretches up and reaches for her almost at once, as though he can’t bear to be apart from her for even these few bare seconds. Taking a fistful of her light, sodden dress he tugs her softly to him.

Slowly, Elain crawls onto the bed beside him but as his hands slide deftly and surely to her hips, ready to settle her down and place himself over her as they usually do, she straddles him instead. Lucien’s eyes go wide as she settles herself astride him, hitching her dress up around her hips, getting it out of their way, wanting nothing between them but sweat and skin.

Leaning down she kisses him as she mounts him and swallows the moan he presses onto her tongue at the feel of her around him. Sitting up slowly she takes both of his hands in hers and, knowing what she wants, he locks his arms against the mattress giving her something to brace against.

His eyes fill with wonder and awe as she begins to move upon him. The way he looks at her in that moment makes her feel like she might be the Mother incarnate, eternal, blissful, consuming -a goddess made flesh before him.

Closing her eyes and letting the feeling of him filling every part of her being she whimpers and whispers his name and hears him echo hers back to her with each gentle thrust. Heat swells in her core and she grips his hands, solid and real as pleasure begins to overwhelm her and she loses herself in him, in this, in them. As she feels them both reach for the beckoning oblivion that will take them she opens herself to him and lets that bond blaze through her soul until there’s no way of separating them or the eternity she demands whatever fates that control this world permit her with him. And every time she sinks down onto him she claims him and calls him home.

****

Lucien settles himself cross-legged on the floor, Elain a mirror image of him but raised slightly, perching on the end of their bed above him. Her fingers comb gently through his hair and he closes his eyes, surrendering himself to the sensation, the contact, his mate.

Loathe as he is to interrupt her he forces himself to jerk out of the pleasant, calm reverie her attentions had helped him slip in to and straightens his spine instead, focusing himself. “You remember what to do?” he asks, turning to peer over his shoulder at her.

Huffing with affectionate indignation Elain takes Lucien’s head gently between her hands and turns it so he faces forward again.

“Yes I remember,” she tells him primly, deftly beginning to section out his hair, “Now please sit still.”

Lucien grins, “Yes dear,” he says mildly.

Elain doesn’t miss the faint trace of sarcasm gilding his words and lightly tugs his hair in reproach. Lucien’s grin broadens when he feels the soft glimmer of her amusement through their bond that she can’t quite suppress. He sends a flicker of fondness back to her and feels her smile in return.

Sobering slightly as she shifts a little closer and begins her work in earnest, Lucien swallows and opens up the pocket of the loose shirt he now wears, withdrawing a length of blue silk ribbon around the width of his finger from it.

Without looking round at her he passes it back over his shoulder after having let it run through his fingers several times, savouring the feel of it against his skin. “Here,” he says quietly, not at all surprised to find that his mouth is dry and his voice hoarse and scratchy, as though he has sand trapped in his throat.

Elain takes the ribbon from him, her delicate fingers brushing against his hand as she does so. The contact sparks through him – lightning shot through his bones in response to her touch. The mating bond that connects them is still new and raw and is always especially sensitive after sex, open and vulnerable, reacting more strongly to every touch or murmur, like an exposed nerve. But Lucien knows there’s more to it than just that heightened sensitivity.

The connection between them is taut and growing more so every second– like a string being tightened by the Cauldron until he fears it might snap him in two if not for the effect of her presence. With each moment that passes he draws further and further away from her as time marches on and drags them on towards their waiting fates. It feels as though every beat of his heart cleaves them further apart and he can barely stand it.

The whisper of space that had parted them when he had spent himself inside her earlier and withdrawn from her has grown wider and wider with every breath that’s brought him closer to the waiting inevitability that lingers on the horizon, bracing to swallow him whole. Whatever he does to try and stop it is pointless - the world continues to tug him nearer to the looming war and further from the tender shelter of her arms.

And it’s as though the bond knows it; as though that anchoring chain that tethers his soul to hers and grounds him in her knows and doesn’t approve. It hums and pulses and seems to bind them even more firmly than it ever has before. He wonders if she feels it too, restless and insistent, like a wild beast, pacing and roaring and snapping at the shadows of the looming battle that dare to try and come between them.

It tugs him to her, pulls him to her, begs him to stay and he pushes back, tells it that it’s for her he goes, for her he’ll fight, for her he’ll kill again – even though it will destroy him to blacken his soul while it remains bound to one as pure as his mate’s, but for her, for _her_ he would fight this war alone to keep them from harming her, to keep them from ever taking her from him, to keep her safe, always.

Her soft voice draws him out of the war being waged in the ravaged battlefield of his soul, pulling him back to her through the conflict and carnage.

“This is mine,” she murmurs quietly.

He nods. Her scent lingers on it still and on his skin where she touched him as they made love. Sweet, like honey poured over her favourite roses but lightly edged with a hint of his own cinnamon scent. He could live on nothing but the feeling of breathing it deep into his lungs.

“Weave it in with the middle section,” he tells her, voice quiet and controlled. The middle section of the design which represents the heart of the warrior; his blood legacy, the record of his greatest battles and kills and the celebration of all he’s survived. That ribbon would symbolise the reason _why._

He feels her go perfectly still behind him and a moment later the deep vein of emotion that ripples through her thrums between them, using their bond like a river joining two lakes. Lucien had sat a few nights earlier and explained the Autumn Court battle traditions he intended to uphold, wanting her to understand their significance and what it meant when he offered her the honour of readying him for battle. And he knows that she understands; that his mate, his beautiful, wonderful mate knows what it means for him to ask her to twine some small part of herself into the war braids his home court have honoured for centuries.

“Are you sure?” Elain whispers quietly to him.

“Yes,” he answers stoutly, then, voice dropping and softening and shaking a little, despite his best efforts to stop it he explains, needing her to understand his reasoning, “It’s a symbol,” he tells her, never looking around at her, back ramrod straight as he stares straight ahead to the wall opposite and continues, “It will tell every other warrior on that battlefield that I have you.”

He falters slightly, chest seeming to cave in on itself, slumping him as he considers what’s coming, what’s facing him. The soft, supportive hand she lays on his shoulder is warm and comforting and it’s as though strength flows into him from her at the place where they’re joined.

 Reaching up he places his hand tenderly over hers and continues, “Everyone on that field will know I have a mate – someone I will do whatever it takes to protect and to, to come home to.” His voice breaks and he lowers his head, overcome with the emotion that flows unrestrainedly through their bond from her in response to his words and to what she in turn can feel pulsing from him. The terror and panic that rises in his chest leashed and controlled by his determination and his love for her.

He’s only able to look up again when he feels her gently urging him to. Turning in place so he can face her once more he tentatively meets her eyes and when he does she swallows hard then takes his face between her hands and kisses him, deep and slow and intense. Elain’s hand gently holds his hair, fingers winding their way through it and anchoring herself in him while two of his fingers slide into the front of her collar and pull her closer, unable to get enough of her as he tilts his head up and parts his lips, granting her access to him.

Lucien can taste the emotion on her tongue, strong and pure. And the love that she feels for him – the love that never ceases to awe and overwhelm him, the love it seems impossible that anyone could ever feel for _him_ gilds every breath of her he draws into his lungs as she withdraws, eyes shining.

With a faint cough Elain rights herself on the bed once more and asks no more questions and voices no more uncertainties as she begins his braids and weaves the blue silk into them as he had instructed – the red of his hair and the blue of her ribbon joining and entwining like lovers.

Her fingers are deft and soft and swift as they work through the intricate braids. He savours every second of this, eyes closed, the bond humming gently between them all the while, kindling the music in his soul that’s been dormant now for too long but that she manages to awaken again, as she’s awoken so much in him he had thought had been dead for centuries.

“You never cut your hair,” she murmurs as she works. Lucien opens his eyes but otherwise doesn’t respond to her words, keeping still and quiet, letting her speak, to explain further what she wants to say, “You turned your back on the Autumn Court centuries ago. You walked away from it all after what they did to you-“

Lucien swallows tightly at the memory and feels an answering flutter of comfort from the bond soothe him again almost instantly, before the horror that still stalks his nightmares and the darker edges of the world they live in can assault him and overwhelm him as he know it longs to do.

“You left your family,” she presses on, knowing that he’s all right and that she won’t upset him by continuing, “Your title, your position, everything,” he senses her hesitate, trying to think of the right words and he doesn’t push her, giving her time. Then, “Why keep this? Why honour this tradition of all things when it...When it feels like a reminder of everything you hated, everything you wanted to escape, the violence and brutality of that court.”

Lucien is quiet for a long time, toying absently with a loose thread in his shirt sleeve as he sucks on his teeth and considers her question. Finally he says, so softly that were they not so close and so intimately alone that she might not have heard him, “The braids do glory in the war and death that the court is known for,” he admits carefully, “And that’s what they tell outsiders, the image they want in everyone’s mind before they face them in battle. Those braids are near legendary on a killing field and the warriors who collect them as trophies of their kills and conquests further that impression, which my father in particular encouraged but...”

He pauses, aware of the secrets that weigh so heavily upon his tongue, secrets his family have protected for millennia. But Elain is his mate and the shadowy threat of his former court doesn’t seem quite as dark and oppressive with that bond pulsing between them and the tender heat of her breath whispering against his skin as she leans in closer to pin his hair.

“Few outsiders are ever told the true significance of the tradition,” Lucien begins slowly, “They glory in the death of enemies, yes, but they also honour our own dead – and celebrate and remind us of the lives those sacrifices saved. Every warriors braids are slightly unique because while two warriors may have fought and killed in the same battles they have all survived different losses and trials that are reflected in their individual designs...”

He trails off at that, lightly fingering the small almost painfully intricate strand that begins at his temple and feeds into the middle section that now contains Elain’s blue ribbon. For his greatest loss, for the one he never fought for, the one a part of him – the part that remained innocent and naive and wildly happy whatever else he went through – that died with her, the one he didn’t save when his father forced her to her knees even as his brothers forced him down with her. For the gentle, loving blood that will never stop staining his hands and heart. For the memory of her laughter that still haunts him and the promise he swore the day he mated Elain – to never add another braid like that; another tear in his soul, again.

A part of his thoughts must break through to Elain, though he had done everything to shield her from them; from that blackest, harshest part of his soul – though she never seems to cease drawing his darkness out of him like a poison from his blood, unfaltering and unafraid of what hides within him – because she leans forwards and presses a soft kiss to the top of his head, nuzzling in gently to bring him back to her and lighten him again.

Swallowing hard Lucien clears his throat and continues, “They are a warning to those who we face but also a reminder of those we mourn, of the grief that goes where we go; the things we’ve done and why; the things we have survived...and those who did not, the ones we couldn’t save, the ones we carry still in our hearts, the ones we will always remember.”

He takes a deep breath as she begins to tie off the ends of his braids. “They symbolise things I do not want to forget – things I should never forget. Cutting my hair would have brought shame to my family and former court...But it would have brought far more so to me and those I had killed and lost.” He shifts slightly as he feels her finish her work and withdrew.

“Do you understand?” he asks cautiously, unable to look at her.

A moment later she’s slithered down onto the floor to sit beside him. Taking his hands between one of hers as she lifts the other to cup his cheek, thumb gently stroking his scar, “Of course I do,” she murmurs softly.

Then she kisses him and Lucien knows she understands all of it – the braids and why he’ll go to battle and fight for her, for everyone he loves, because he will never have her add another mourning braid to his design.

For a long time afterwards she remains curled in his lap, his arms looped gently around her waist to keep her close. One by one he explains each and every one of his braids to her, telling her the story and significance behind each one. By the time he’s finished tears stain both of their cheeks.

“And this one,” Elain murmurs, her brow pressed against his, her eyes closed, her breath hot on his skin as she plucks at the last braid left unexplained, the one with her blue ribbon woven into it.

He opens his mouth to reply but before he can she sits up straighter against him and opens her eyes. Holding his face between both of her hands she tells him, voice defiant and stern despite the tremble that ripples through her words, “This one is home,” she murmurs, gently plucking at it like a harp string and the bond echoes as though in answer, “This one is us. Our bond. Our love.”

She takes his hand and kisses his knuckles before she presses it to her chest so he can feel her heartbeat, “It’s the reason you’ll stay safe and come back to me,” he swallows, throat tight with emotion at her words. Tears slip from her eyes again as she says thickly, “It’s the reason I’ll be here waiting for you. No matter what happens. No matter what you do. Just come back to me and I’ll be here for you. I promise.”

Reaching out even as fresh tears mar his own skin he brushes hers away with his thumb and whispers hoarsely, “I know.”

He wonders if she understands what her words mean to him – what it means to have her. Someone who will always be there without judgement or expectation, who will always fold him into her arms and keep him safe from the demons that ravage his soul. Someone who actually cares if he comes back at all. Someone who would truly mourn and miss him. Someone who might really need him. Someone who will never let him be alone again. Someone who looks at him and sees not a traitor, or a coward, or a broken soul but _home_.

The way she kisses him tells him at least part of those thoughts made it through to her and that if he returns to her she’s going to spend their eternity banishing their stain from his soul.

They hold each other in haunted silence for so long that Lucien loses track of everything that isn’t her scent and her heat and her touch and _her_ wrapping around him. The horns of battle drag them apart and back into the war torn world around them just after dawn. By the time the drums begin to beat, calling them to arms, to fight, to kill, to die perhaps, Lucien is already rising to his feet, helping her up after him.

Leaning down he kisses her forehead and says softly, “Go on plum, you don’t need to be here for this, I’ll call the servants.”

“No.” She looks up into his face, voice uncharacteristically hard and fierce, “I want to do it.”

Lucien closes his eyes, trying to remember how to breathe as Elain’s fingers, usually so gentle and deft, fumble with the buckles of his armour. With every strap she tugs on and fastens it feels as though he’s being sealed more and more tightly into a metal coffin built only to bring and harbour death.

Only the quiet presence of his mate keeps him grounded as the panic begins to build. Lucien was trained for battle and war from the moment he was old enough to hold a practice sword. They forged him into a warrior, taught him how to kill but they could never make him relish it not when it reminded him so much of his father and brothers, the grim pleasure on their faces at the sight of the blood that had spattered the walls when they had butchered his love. The laughter that had mingled with his screams, the way they had celebrated and triumphed in his grief still haunts him.

The thought of becoming like that, of becoming so numb to war and death that he begins to find a twisted sense of satisfaction in it sickens him. Stepping on to that killing field he knows he’ll fear his own death far less than the prospect of living with the ones he’ll cause.

Finally finished, Elain steps back from him to admire her handiwork. She fusses unnecessarily and Lucien knows that she’s stalling and after almost a solid minute of this he gently takes her hand and squeezes it to make her stop.

Slowly she looks him up and down, taking in the armour that now covers every inch of him, the fierce war braids she herself had given him and the blades strapped across his body, honed to lethal edges. 

A faint whimper bursts from her throat a moment before she begins repeatedly shaking her head. Lucien’s heart shatters as she all but throws herself into his arms, burrowing in against his chest still shaking her head over and over and over again as though if she does that enough she just make it all stop before it ever happens.

Her whole body trembles so violently against him that he instinctively raises his arms and wraps them firmly around her, as though he can hold her together and stop her breaking apart. With the way she clings to him now he can’t help but sense she’s feeling the same thing. Lucien softly cradles her to him, his arms tightening around her as her emotions slam into him through their bond, despite her efforts to keep them contained.

Terror and pain and panic and over it all in a rising, deafening cacophony within her desperate soul is the urgent desire to keep him there, to refuse to let him go, to beg him not to leave her. Closing his eyes as tightly as he can Lucien steels himself and pushes down on his own dread and fear until he barely feels them anymore.

Kissing the top of her head he rocks her back and forth in his arms, soothingly rubbing her back, trying to gentle the panicked storm he feels raging under her skin.

“It will be all right,” he whispers into her hair, “I promised you, I promised everything would be all right and it will, it will.”

An empty promise. A hollow oath – as devoid of meaning as all his oaths have been. A lie that it rips his soul into shreds to tell but for her, for her...She needs it. He knows she needs it. Even if it’s a lie, even if they both know that’s what it is, she needs him to say it and so he will over and over and over again until she believes him if that’s what it takes.

Elain withdraws just enough to tilt her head up to look at him, arms still clamped around his chest as though she never means to let him go again, as though she’s going to keep him safe and held against her for every second of the eternity he prays they’ll get to have together.

Tears shine in those beautiful brown eyes, rich and warm as molten velvet but they don’t fall as she reaches up and gently cups his cheek in her hand, the other still tightly gripping the lacings at his back.

“I love you,” she whispers, voice trembling with the same emotion that echoes through their bond.

Lucien kisses her. A kiss that’s rough and hard and intense while he grips her to him so tightly that he lifts her from the floor, holding her close to him. It’s a kiss that will linger with them when they part, its ghost remaining on his lips and tongue, in his chest, in each breath he takes – its memory kept locked up safe in her heart to keep her warm while she waits for his return. It’s a kiss that could end this world and begin it anew, a kiss that could shatter kingdoms, a kiss that could almost keep that impossible promise he made to her on its strength and love alone.

Brow pressed against hers Lucien tenderly strokes her cheeks with his thumb, savouring the softness of her creamy skin beneath his rough calluses, “I love you too,” Lucien whispers back then kisses her again.

This time it’s gentle but messy and blind driven only by feeling and want and the tender love that lights the dark hollows of his heart. It ends before it’s truly over, before either of them are ready for it. When he withdraws from that kiss he withdraws from her entirely severing every tie he has to this moment, every connection to her save the one thing they can never break no matter what they do to him – that bond.

Hardening his heart at the cost of every shred of will and strength he has in him Lucien makes himself turn and walk away from her, his Elain, his _mate_. Every step he takes from her drives another blade into his heart, fully aware as he is that these steps might never carry him back to her; that the distance he carves between them, the chasm he tears open between their souls as he walks away from her with this knowledge might never be healed if he fails to keep that promise to her but he doesn’t stop.

If he doesn’t go now, like this, he knows he never will. And maybe she’ll hate him for it, for his coldness, for this brutal separation, but he prays she’ll understand. He has to go, he has to, for her, for them, for the world he fights for that belongs to the dreamers and for the life he’s dared to dream for them in the future he has to go.

So he doesn’t stop when he feels his heart falter at the thought of her standing there alone, gazing after him. He doesn’t stop when he hears her breathing hitch though it makes every instinct he has flare and demand he go to her, take her in his arms, hold her, soothe the agony he knows is within her. He doesn’t stop when he feels their bond go taut, trying to pull him back to her, where he should be, where he belongs – the only place he’s ever really belonged or mattered.

He clenches his fists and keeps going. He leaves her with her blue ribbon braided into his hair, the soft ghost of her kiss still lingering on his lips and the promise he’d made her echoing in his heart.

****

Elain forces herself to turn her back on him as he walks away from her. Since they mated they’ve always remained close enough that she could always go to him if she needed to see him, or hear the sound of his voice or kiss him or even just hold him.

Standing there listening to him walking further and further away from her, onto a battlefield and perhaps into the arms of death, walking away and possibly never coming back is destroying her. The world might have forced her back into the Cauldron – she has the same sense of drowning of her entire existence being ripped apart at the seams.

The bond, their bond, howls at her to act, to fight, to _do_ something for once, to stand up and refuse to meekly accept what she’s being given. It urges her to go to him, to run after him, to stay with him, to fight at his side and protect him from the war that’s coming.

But she can’t. And she understands that he needs to go and she needs to stay.

So she remains staring out of the window ahead of her as the sun claws its way higher into the blood red sky and she clenches her hands tightly at her sides ignoring the desperate urgings of the bond until she can no longer hear his footsteps and it’s faded to little more than a breathless whisper within her soul.

Once Elain is sure he’s gone she lets his shoulders slump and turns back to the empty, silent room. Tightly gripping that bond she closes her eyes and offers up a wordless prayer, the first she’s made in years, to the Mother, the Cauldron, to anything that might hear her and keep him safe – send him home. That’s all she asks, that they let him come back to her again – for that she’d do anything, _anything_.


	2. The Silence

Chasing The Sun Part 2: The Silence

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

All of her life seems to have been spent that way – waiting for something. Waiting for their fortune to finally run out and leave them with nothing, little more than beggars; for the frozen, terrifying winter to thaw into spring, for the shadow of death that fell over their cottage every year to pass; for things to get better, _this year, this year, this year;_ for a husband to come and claim her; for children; for the end of her mortal existence, old and content with her life predictable, expected. All she’d hoped for.

All this time spent waiting to live, waiting for a life that was actually worth living.

 Nesta had looked back. Back to the past they had once had with bitter longing, refusing to find even a scrap of joy or light in their present for spite. Feyre had been the only one existing in that present. She had lived measuring her life, _their_ lives, day by day, forcing herself to just get through now, just survive this hour, this hour, this hour and think about the next only when it arrived.

 Meanwhile Elain had looked forwards. And had hoped that maybe next week, next month, next year, would be better for her; for them all. She had planted her little seeds in what they’d humoured her and called her garden and she had gone to bed that night already dreaming of the bright, beautiful flowers that they would one day become without ever even know if they’d sprout or take root at all.

Always waiting. Always. And just when she had thought she had what she had spent all that time waiting for, something that didn’t make her want to wait for something else, something more, something better; something that had made her want to _live_ , it had come again. The stillness, the hopelessness, the inevitability of it all.

Just as she had finally begun living- finally stopped passively letting time slip by, only vaguely wondering what the next moment may bring- and had started actively seizing every second with both hands. Now always reluctant to allow it to slip through her fingers, it had ground to a halt and forced her to wait once more. As it demanded to pass she had demanded it pause. Only a little longer, a little longer, a little longer, until she was quite sure she was done with it. And now it stalls and she wants it to rush by, to race by, to pass without her noticing.

Ironic, she muses now, that she had only started valuing her time when it had become unlimited, only started savouring every beat of her heart when their number had been made infinite, only started truly living when she had become immortal.

Though her transformation has had little and less to do with her desire to make the most of every moment than her mate has. Her mate – Lucien – the one who woke her from her slumber; mild and pleasant but as good as death compared with the life she experiences so fully with him now. Lucien. Who had finally made her stop waiting, who had finally made her want to live in the moment with him.

A sudden pain bursts through her heart, a lethal blade driven through it, crippling her for a moment as she realises that she had never told him- She had never told him that he had brought her to life. As surely as she ever had for him. There might not have been the same shattered darkness in her, her soul may have lacked the jagged, uneven scars that had never fully stitched together that his had possessed before she had helped him begin to heal.

But they had both been stuck –frozen in time, unable to live – he for having too little hope; believing all the world to be a mess governed by monsters, not worth saving, not worth fighting for, not worth trying for, barely worth existing in at all. While she had had too much hope; too busy idly wondering about a better world, too busy dreaming of childish, impossible things in her over bright future to waste time existing in her grim reality.

She had shown him the way back, the way the world could be if he only dared to dream and try. He had taught her what she had been missing out on, what could be found right in front of her. She had been lost and he had taken her hand and guided her home. He had been broken and she had healed his battered, weary soul. And together – together they had both learned how to live again.

It occurs to her now that she had never said that to him – any of it. She had never once, in all these weeks with him, spending time with him, slowly blooming into her full potential in the face of his encouragement, finding the fire that he kindled in her with the sparks of his own, experiencing every moment so fully as she slowly began to fall for him, and him for her, wanting him, claiming him, mating him, _loving_ him. She had never told him just what he meant to her, what he’d done for her, how he’d been as much her salvation as she had been his.

Panic takes root in her chest and digs in deep until it begins to grow, blossoming there until it fills her chest and leaves no room for breath or her now aching heart, crushed beneath the weight of her worry and her regrets. All of the things she never said to him, never did with him and may now never get the chance to, battle for her attention until she wants to hold her head in her hands and scream for someone, anyone, to make it stop.

She wants him here. She wants his arms around her. She wants to breathe in his scent, _their_ scent, let it fill her, let it soothe the terror within her as only he could. She wants him nuzzling gently against her neck, fingers stroking through her long hair. She wants him kissing her forehead and tucking her in tight against his body, enveloping her in his safe warmth. She wants him to whisper that he loves her, that he’s here with her and that he’ll never leave her again. She wants him here with her so badly the ache that cracks within her at the longing, at the _need_ is almost overwhelming. And she might never see him again, might never do any of those things with him again.

The reality of the situation crashes into her with such brutal force it knocks whatever breath she’d managed to cling to from her lungs as though she’s been stabbed in the chest. Her mate in the middle of a battle, in the middle of a _war_. Her mate, alone again as he was for far too long before they found each other. Her mate, fighting without her, bleeding without her, hurt without her, perhaps _dying_ without her- Her mate...Her mate in danger while she remains safe and protected as always, sheltered and kept away from it all, away from him. Her mate - the one she waits for now.

The warm, comfortable manor bedroom she shares with Lucien where she sits without him might as well be their old, cramped draughty cottage. The gentle, fragrant spring air suddenly tastes of the sharp, frigid sting of winter, the scent of death chilling her lungs with every breath. The world stills as it had all those years in their cottage as once again she waits for someone she loves to fight and act and risk themselves for her, to come back safe.

 Feyre had done it for years; until it had seemed normal, until the threats she faced seemed remote and unreal – something that might happen to another but never to her. They had been real, more so than Elain thinks she ever let them realise yet every day she had gone, perhaps never to return, and Elain had waited. Waited in naive certainty that everything would be alright if she hoped hard enough, if she believed it would be then it would. Waited thoughtlessly, ungratefully. Waited and did nothing.

And now Lucien. _Lucien..._

Her lungs feel like crumpled tissue, weak and fragile and near useless. It’s impossible to breathe for the fear that grips her chest like a vice, her ribcage seeming to contract like a fist, collapsing in on itself, squeezing the air from her.

 Her whole body shakes uncontrollably and she sets aside her sewing – the thing she’d normally use to calm and ground herself if she was nervous about something – almost as soon as she picks it up because her hands tremble so badly.

She feels sick; sick at the thoughts that storm through her mind like war horses plunging towards a paper shield wall that’s all that stands between her and them. Sick at the images that slice through her like sharpened blades through flesh; sick at the whisper of death she sees lurking in the shadows. Every loud noise becomes a lethal blow, her mate’s scream of agony, and she jumps and clutches her heart as it races like the pounding war drums that still thunder in the distance.

Closing her eyes she tries to let the quiet silence around her soothe her. She is alone in their room – something she usually goes out of her way to avoid, liking the soft babble of voices flitting around her, the warmth of others gathered nearby but now...

Every hushed word spoken by the few servants that had remained had further shredded her already fraying nerves. After snapping at them one too many times she had removed herself from their presence. It wasn’t fair that they be made to deal with her worry, she had reasoned.

There’s no-one left in the manor whose company she would want to seek out now anyway, even if she didn’t prefer the taste of solitude as a balm to her terror. Lucien has gone to fight, along with Feyre, Rhys and everyone else in their court Elain has come to know and care for. Only she and Nesta remain and Nesta...

Her elder sister had wanted to go with them, even as she had. When they had told her that she could not she had ranted and raged like a storm tossed up from some black hell. Incensed she had fought and bargained and even come close to begging to be able to fight beside her mate.

 Everyone from Feyre, to Rhys, to Cassian himself had explained why she couldn’t – they were untrained, untried and untested. They had no place on the frontlines of this war. But Nesta had argued, argued and argued and argued and both sides had flatly refused to yield.

 It had not been until Elain herself had spoken up from her place near the back of the room where she’d been standing tightly holding Lucien’s hand, his thumb softly and soothingly stroking her skin while she watched her sisters fight, that Nesta had finally listened.

Quietly, but with a faint flicker of her elder sister’s own steel, she had said that they would only be a distraction, an unnecessary worry in the midst of an already dangerous and uncertain battle and so they had to stay behind. Only then, her eyes on Cassian, considering the full impact of Elain’s words – what her stubborn defiance might cost her – had Nesta finally backed down. And she had not done so happily.

Now she stands alone on the terrace, staring out in the direction of the battle that rages in the distance, to Cassian, to her love, impatiently awaiting his return.

Elain had tried to wait with her but she’d only set her on edge pacing and angry and scared as she was. In the end she had retreated back down to their bedroom where Lucien’s scent still lingers in the air – the one place in the manor where she can feel close to him despite the distance between them.

Closing her eyes Elain reaches inside herself to where that bond twines with her heartstrings and clings tightly to it. Her one and only link to him, the only thing keeping her from completely losing her mind. That bond was an anchor in a restless, violent sea – the only thing that stops it from devouring and drowning her. The bond shivers between them and every ripple, however small, makes her breathing a little easier.

_Not dead. Not dead. Not dead. Not dead._

Still alive. Still fighting. Still coming back to her.

Sitting by the open window, the fresh spring breeze gentle on her face, Elain lets that bond, that piece of him that will always be in her, no matter what else tries to separate them, fill her up and soothe the terror that grapples with her soul.

All she feels is him, letting the gentle music that murmurs between their souls block everything else out, softening and soothing her. His presence always does, the scent of him, the sound of his voice wrapping around her and the answering whispers that reach through the veils of the world to settle her. But even that isn’t enough to calm the terror that batters against the two armies clashing on the battlefield of her being.

Losing this bond, losing _him_...Elain can’t even begin to imagine how that would feel but...It would be like having her soul ripped from her and shredded until only fragments remained; like having her heart drained until it was little more than a hollow shell of what it is with Lucien in it. It would leave her a ghost of herself – cursed to spend her immortality in this world without feeling it or really _living_ it without him.

A small part of her is almost afraid of what she would do for him, to keep him safe. For him she would die, she knows and she would fight, bloody the hands that have only ever given life to this world, for him she would hurt and kill and stumble into wreck and ruin – into the blackest depths of hell without pause just to see him again, to bring him back from whatever darkness had tried to claim him.

Taking a deep breath she gets to her feet to open the window a little wider, unable to breathe in the suddenly stifling room but she never reaches it. The bond blinds her. Feelings slam into her again and again with a strength she thought could only come from two gods going to war with each other.

Terror and agony and panic and horror and _pain_.

The sickening crunch of metal and bone. The hot gush of blood flowing in a crimson river over sun kissed skin. The sudden burst of an image in front of her eyes – heavy, pregnant black clouds gathering like dense smoke above a world that burns red and black with blood and death. A dagger flashing towards her like forked lighting.

And above it all repeating over and over and over like a spell, like a prayer, like a heartbeat, like the last words on a lover’s lips as they’re forced to leave this world without their other half – a single word. Her name. _Elain. Elain. Elain. Elain. Elain. Elain._

Then nothing.

“Lucien!” she screams – with her voice, with her mind, with her heart, with her soul, with everything she has.  

The sudden absence of him, so strong only a moment ago that for a heartbeat he had utterly overwhelmed her, rattles her to her core. His body had been hers; his pain had jolted through her flesh; his world had become her own. The sudden loss of him drives her out of her mind. It’s as though someone has taken half of her, as though they’ve sawn her in half down the middle and left her to stumble blindly alone through the world, with this gaping hole in her.

Without thought, acting only with the basest of instincts to drive her, Elain seizes hold of that bond. With a wild, untamed strength she never knew was in her she grabs it and she tugs. If he’s falling into the next world, if the arms of death are closing around him then she’ll pull him back to her again.

He is _hers_. Her mate. Her love. Her soul’s partner. And they can’t take him.

Bellowing his name down the bond she throws herself against it, willing him to respond, begging him to send something back, a flicker, a whisper, anything, _anything_. She dances on the edge of madness and looks into the face of her own destruction when she feels the bond go taut and utterly, deathly still. Like the string of an instrument that usually ripples and vibrates with their music it now stills.

The silence that claims her in its wake is the worst thing she’s ever endured.

“Lucien, Lucien, Lucien, Lucien, _Lucien_ ,” she howls, her terror and grief beyond tears, stripping every word from her but his name which she bellows into the silence of their room, of her mind, of their bond.

If he’s gone. If he’s dead. If she let him go, let him die- alone, scared and alone and without her. If she never sees that playful smirk again, never hears his wicked voice soften and gentle as it wraps around her name, never kisses him again, never holds him again, never tells him how much she loves him-

Elain sinks to her knees, a strangled sob torn from her throat as the bond shudders. Her mate. Her wonderful, clever, precious mate sends soft waves of reassurance to her, a balm to her raw, ravaged soul, like cool air on burning, fevered skin. When she closes her eyes again, tears still leaking out from beneath her lids, she can almost hear his voice echo through the still panicked corners of her mind.

_I’m all right, dove. I’m all right. I’m all right._

The flicker of a smile tugs her lips and she lets her love for him overwhelm her, filling every part of her until it washes away the lingering stain of panic and terror that still hovers in her bones. Opening herself to Lucien she lets it flood down the bond to him and feels him hum gently in response.

Focused on his task but making sure she knows he’s still there, still fighting, still keeping his promise to her. Relief loosens the iron bands that had tightened around her chest making it impossible to breathe. Her body feels heavy, like her bones have been filled with lead and as the last vestiges of desperate, fiery energy drain out of her. She shudders, every inch of her exhausted and aching. Her muscles all feel as though they’ve been beaten.

She wants to sleep, she wants to sink into bed and feel Lucien’s arms wrap gently around her from behind, drawing her in to him, holding her close as she drifts off in his embrace. But without she knows she can’t. With a shuddering breath she crawls down onto their bed, her legs shaking too badly to support her.

Curling up against the headboard she takes a moment to even out her breathing a little more. Using some of the techniques Lucien had quietly taught her when she’d awakened screaming beside him after a nightmare she calms herself. Her chest still feels tight and her breaths are shallow and hallow, as though her lungs are too small for her body and she can never get enough air into them to sustain her.

Picturing Lucien’s gentle hands rubbing her back isn’t the same as having him there but she still finds some small comfort in it. Slowly she begins to return to herself. Her breathing becomes more even and rhythmic, her galloping heart steadies, no longer intent on hurling itself from her ribcage and she no longer feels as nauseous.

Reaching over to his side of the bed she plucks up his pillow and holds it against her. burying her face into it she breathes deeply. His scent clings to it, roasted chestnuts and apples all dusted with the spice of cinnamon that now flavours her own scent – it comforts her and soothes her as she breathes it in, breathes _him_ in.

That more than anything fully draws her out of her panic. The hours that follow pass with agonizing slowness, drawn out and painful like the starving winters they had once spent in their cottage slowly wasting away, dreaming of the spring that would come and soothe them. Each one she spends with his pillow tucked in tight to her body, giving her what little comfort it can.

The bond between them is the only thing that keeps her from losing her mind completely with worry. It hums with their quiet, gentle music and pulses in a rhythm of its own like a second heartbeat. It tells her he’s still alive, still out there, still coming home to her. It never fails or falters again, never even stumbles, as though it knows that would be too much for her to bear, that she can’t endure going through that again.

Her mate was hurt – not dead, not dead, still breathing, his heart still beating in time with her own, she reminds herself over and over and over again – but hurt. Injured and she doesn’t know what happened or how badly wounded he might be.

Instincts she didn’t know she possessed, borne of her new Fae form or just her love for him she doesn’t know, sharpened by their mating bond, flare in her at the thought. It’s an effort to tamp down on the rage that burns and builds in her, a fire that craves the fuel of the spark that caused it, the ones who would harm him.

She’s driven to go to him, to find him, shield him, protect him however she may. Her body yearns to run, to run and run and run until the world slips beneath her feet and blurs into unreality around her, until she stands before her mate again and can defend him as she was made to.

Never again will she meekly remain behind while he puts himself at risk. Never again will she let them be parted so easily while they’re at war. If this world ends and burns around hem she wants her ashes to lie with his, be swept away into whatever awaits them beyond.

So never again will she let him fight alone. Never again will she allow them to make her believe that place is anywhere but by his side. They belong together.  She intends to live the rest of her eternity with him – she should end it beside him too. After tonight she would rather die together than live alone.

As time slips by she counts out her heartbeats, willing him home with each one, clutching the bond tightly, her only link to him, the only way she can keep him safe and bring him home – with her love and her hope, the strength so few except Lucien have ever seen.

And she prays. For the first time in years she prays – to gods her people have no awareness of, gods she doesn’t even think she believes in. Because they might be listening. And they might have the power to send her Lucien home to her.

Her Lucien. Who is tired and shattered and hollow in places he hasn’t yet let her see. Her Lucien whose soul is battered and weary and broken – only now beginning to heal. Her Lucien who his gods owe, if they exist, and have any power over him, for all the things they’ve done and put him through and all the pain they’ve caused him. Her Lucien who still fights and makes his way home for her – their bond tells her. Her Lucien who she prays for and hopes for and loves so deeply she feels she could end this war for him with that alone.

Her Lucien who she waits for as the sun begins to set, staining the sky a deep, bloody red once more. In the distance the black clouds gather – the gore crows that have waited, just as she has, for this battle to end, now descend upon the carnage of the aftermath to reap their reward for their hungry patience.

Slowly, Elain rises to her feet and moves to the window, eyes fixed on the distant killing field, looking out to her love. The bond within her clenches like a heartbeat and a tentative smile tugs at her weary lips at what she feels from him in return.

Home. He’s coming home to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for all your feedback so far! if you have a moment I'd love more!


	3. The Abyss

 

Again.

Again.

Again.

Another step. Another. And another. And another.

Every movement is an effort. As though he’s having to drag himself through waist high mud that keeps pulling him back and  sucking him down and threatening to drown him with each pause. But not pausing is almost impossible. It’s too hard. Too much. He’s too hollow, too cold, too tired, too shattered. Stopping now would be the easiest thing in the world. Sinking to his knees and letting this world finally claim him would be the simplest thing he’s ever done. Taking each step on, choosing to keep going, might be the hardest.

There’s a disconnect between his body and his mind – his body feels so far away. It's as though it’s not really his at all, as though it belongs to someone else, as though it’s not really _him_ at all. To him it’s little more than a puppet. A puppet with tangled strings that rarely obeys his commands and only makes it easier to fall. 

More than once he wonders why he bothers. More than once he wonders why he doesn’t just sink to his knees and let the ragged abyss he can sense on the fraying fringes of his awareness sweep over him. Why he doesn't just let it drain him, damn him, doom him to the nothingness that’s spreading through him. He wonders why he fights, why he tries, why he doesn’t just give up.

Numb. He’s gone numb to everything. His battered, blood-drenched body aches with every step. It protests every movement that jars the injuries that haven’t yet healed. He barely feels it. 

The lands around him, which have melted into vaguely familiar surroundings now, a part of him manages to recognise as home blur. It doesn’t feel like home. The warm spring breeze that rustles through his braids doesn’t soothe him as it should. There’s no rush of relief, no sudden lightness, no soft smile to tug at his lips in response to the comfort of returning somewhere safe and known and good. The paths he’s walked and ridden and lost himself in for centuries belong only to some distant part of him that may as well be a stranger for all that he understands it now.

 Only the discordant music of war is remotely real to him in this moment; distant and faint though it is. It's an echo of the horrors he experienced, a ghost of the nightmares the world had made real and forced him to walk through again.

Drums. Pounding and pounding and pounding like the steady heartbeat of an idle god that viewed this battle as he would a game of chess. Lucien has no illusions about the part he had to play in it all. He was a pawn. A sacrifice if it would further the cause of the king. A shield for the more valuable players when he could not even be that. The role he had always played.

The clash of steel on steel bursts through him, at odds with the even, eternal drums. It had no beat of its own, each instance part of an individual dance and song. And doesn't care about anything that exists beyond it. The shrieks of Fae and horses alike become a hideous, toneless, wailing cacophony that surrounds him and smothers him. He doesn’t think it will ever stop ringing in his ears. It will haunt him to the day the Mother takes him home.

The screams he is responsible for will never leave him. Those caused by the wounds that he dealt on that killing field and those that will answer the dead from the throats of the damned – those that loved the people he killed today – will never leave him.

Stumbling, he forces himself on. Though his mind still walks across that battlefield- through blood and gore and fear- not taking in anything around him. He wants nothing more than to stop, to collapse out here and let it all consume him – as it should.

But every time it threatens to win, to beat him and destroy him, she stops it. Every time it sweeps in to overwhelm him he sees the light that dances in her rich, dark velvet eyes. Or he hears the gentle music of her laughter. Or feels the quiet press of her lips against his; what he truly recognises and knows is home.

Her name repeats in his soul over and over and over again – _Elain, Elain, Elain, Elain, Elain._

A heartbeat. More real and present to him than the hollow emptiness that is all that’s left of the heart he might have had before it was shattered by war. He’s never sure if it comes from within him- the only flicker of light amidst a body built of black hollows and ash dusted bones. Or if it’s from her. Something she sends down their bond whenever she feels him getting lost, gently guiding him back home to her.

Whatever the cause it keeps him going. It’s a drive, a want, a necessity. More than food or sleep or warmth or air he needs _her_.

Through the dense haze of his exhaustion he has this tie to the world. The world that still feels so distant and remote to him he wonders if it was ever real at all. He needs to see her again. The way her brassy hair fans across his chest catching the golden light of early morning that gilds their room. The way her deep brown eyes crinkle when she smiles. The shape of her delicate lips when they bend around his name.

He needs the scent of her, sweet and fragrant. He needs the scent of _them-_  her soft sweetness tempered by his fiery spice- to fill his lungs and wash away the blood mist that taints them now. He needs to feel the softness of her lips against his. He needs to hear her mumbling thoughtlessly in her sleep. He needs to watch her humming quietly to herself while she potters about the garden buried under one of her big floppy hats.

That need, the ache to be with her again keeps him upright whenever he stumbles. And the bond. The bond he’d felt her seize and pull with every ounce of her strength when death’s cold whisper had skittered through his bones. The bond that had pulled him back from the darkness that had sought to damn him. The bond that still hums within him – the only thing that tells him he’s still here, that his soul is not yet utterly, irrevocably lost. The bond that shows him how to get home. The bond that pulses with her quiet, anchoring presence and keeps him moving forwards. His lighthouse in the midst of a violent storm. The bond that stops him from breaking entirely.

The manor comes in to view at last and Lucien drags his weary body through the over-bright gardens. They now look garish and tasteless to him.  The rich vibrant colours seem out of place in a world that’s so full of the blacks and greys and soulless emptiness of death and war.

Up the sloping gravel path and finally to the steps that lead to the doors behind which his love waits for him.

“Lucien!”

The cry blazes through him like a shooting star through the cold, empty expanse of the night sky. Lightning bursts into his bones, crackling along his nerves, jolting his  silent heart as it begins to beat again for her.

He looks up in time to see her hurtling towards him. Her hair is unbound it flies behind her like a golden river. Her skirts billow like storm clouds around her a moment before she throws herself into her arms. Rocking back he absorbs her, balancing them both as she clings to him.

Her arms wrap so tightly around him it’s as though she’s trying to crush the breath from his lungs. But it makes him feel safe. Being in her arms again, he feels grounded and _real,_ less like he’s slipping away from himself into nothingness.

Elain buries her face into the crook of his neck. Slowly he lifts his arms from where they hang limp and lifeless at his sides and wraps them around her slim form. Something snaps in him at the action. It's the first he’s wanted to make since dragging himself from that killing field. The first thing he hasn’t had to fight with his body to do. The first thing that's felt right. 

Instinct slams into him like a vanguard changing through enemy lines, shattering a part of the numb wall that surrounds him. Surging against her he grips her tightly and lifts her off her feet. Some unknown vestige of strength in his hollowed, wrecked body keeps him from crumpling.

Gasping for breath Lucien burrows his face against the soft skin of her neck. Then he places her name over and over and over again. His breath beats against her again and again like the drums that still pound endlessly in his bones.

Trembling he cradles her against him, digging his fingers deep into her thick brassy curls. The numb daze that still fills his empty mind continues to assault him but she helps. Mother bless her she helps.

She’s the only thing left that actually feels _real_ to him. The rest of the world is slipping away from him like sand through a sieve. It feels like a dream he’s just woken up from and the more he tries to remember the more he forgets. As it all melts away leaving him alone, terrified, in the blank emptiness, only she remains- solid and eternal. Something no-one and nothing can ever take away from him.

His mate. His anchor when he’s adrift in the flat, interminable sea that surrounds him. It waits to claim him, to drag him into the still abyss that claims to offer peace. But however hard it pulls at him, however fiercely his demons tug him down her hold on him is stronger. She keeps him tethered to the this world, to _her_ and she refuses to ever let him go.

Taking a deep breath that shudders through them both Lucien buries his face in her thick hair and breathes her in. That scent, the scent of her, of them, their mating bond fills him. Her arms tighten around his chest, holding him close. Somehow – somehow- she manages to keep all of his broken pieces together to stop him shattering entirely.

****

Reluctantly, Elain withdraws from him only enough to allow her to look up at him. His whole body is shaking violently and uncontrollably in her arms and she winces at it. The only other times she’s ever seen him like this, so shaken and unlike himself, is when he has nightmares. Though she supposes the whole battle would have been one for him triggering so many of the awful memories he tries to keep hidden from her.

Through the bond, with their new proximity she feels – _nothing_.

It’s as though there’s nothing there on the other side. It's as though she’s connected to an empty void where once there was her mate.

That scares her more than feeling pain or guilt or grief or horror would have. He came home. He came back to her, as he promised her he would. She’s holding him in her arms yet he’s not really here, not really with her. He's still trapped on that battlefield.

Gently, she tugs on the bond between them. It shivers faintly but nothing more.

Withdrawing a little farther from him she looks up into his eyes and takes him in properly. Covered in blood and gore, limping slightly on his left side he looks more exhausted and haunted than she’s ever seen him.

She hates it.

The light that she’s recently kindled in his russet eye has died completely. Replaced instead with black shadows that dance and scream just beneath the surface of his soul. He’s hollow and empty and lost.

Her body still trembles with the aftershocks of the battle. The terror that had torn through her when she’d feared him dead still tremling in her. But she swallows down her own fear and composes herself as best she can. Her mate needs her. She'll do whatever she can to help him. 

Gently, she slides her arms from around his chest, letting him go. He blinks faintly at that her but she takes his hand, softly lacing their fingers together. Giving his hand a careful squeeze she leads him inside and guides him up to their chambers. It’s quiet up here and they  can be alone together. Separate from the wild chaos of reunion and triumph that’s about to sweep through the manor with the return of the conquering army. That will only drag him back into the blood and madness of battle and pull him even further away from her. She knows it’s the last thing he needs so she removes him from it before it can overwhelm him.

Their bedroom is cool and calm and she senses him settle out a little when they enter it. Some of the tension that quivers through him leaks out of him at the familiarity of their surroundings. Letting go of his hand briefly she forces herself to turn away from him. But only long enough to close the door, sealing them off from the rest of the manor and ensuring their privacy. Making herself stay away from him just a moment longer she summons a servant. Quickly and quietly she asks him to prepare a bath for them next door. Then she retreats into the sanctuary of their room and the lone company of her mate again.

When she turns back to Lucien she realises he hasn’t moved an inch from where she left him. He's still standing in exactly the same spot, still staring straight ahead of him without truly seeing anything.

Hurrying back to him she takes his hand in hers again and strokes her thumb over the back of it. Urgently peering up into his face as she tries to bring him out of himself and the abyss she feels him slipping in to.

Looking him up and down more slowly now her eyes take him in. She notes every dent and scratch on his armour, however small or faint and the blood stains that mar his tanned skin. Her heart clenches at the sight. Raising her hand she lets her fingers scrape lightly over a small bruise on his cheekbone. Stomach twisting at even that slight hurt she forces herself to focus. 

“Let’s get you out of this, okay?” she murmurs softly stepping closer to him.

Lucien doesn’t protest when her fumbling fingers start to work at the straps and buckles of the metal armour she had encased him in. It had been a task she had insisted upon doing for him herself, refusing to let him summon servants. She had insisted upon doing it.  She had dressed him for war and braided his hair. Then she had sent him off with nothing but her violet ribbon twined through it and one last urgent kiss pressed to his lips. She had let him go into battle alone and now... Now he wears a shell, empty and hollowed by what he’s seen, what he’s done.

She hates it.

This isn’t her mate with his quick, razor sharp wits. There isn't a trace of the playful twinkle in his russet eye just for her. The way he speaks to her, the softness in his voice, the tenderness in his gaze have all been stripped away by what he’s endured- what she’d sent him in to.

Every shred of self-control Elain possesses is needed to stop the sob building in her chest from escaping her. One by one she opens up every buckle, loosens every strap, undoes every fastening. Slowly she removes the armour that shields him from her, keeping him entombed in the horror he's lived through.

_ Home _ . She reminds herself over and over and over, home, home, home, home. He came home to her, alive and uninjured. She can help him, she can heal him, she can bring him back to her. He came home. He came _home_. He’s here, he’s alive, everything will be all right.

It has to be. It has to be.

At last he stands before her in nothing but his stained and soiled clothing. The steel shell of his armour lies forgotten in a messy pile at their feet. Somehow he seems smaller without it all. She feels as though she’s stripped away all his masks at the same time leaving him barer than before her now than he ever has been.

Her mate is damaged and scarred Elain has always known that. There's always been a darkness to him that she hasn’t seen in to. She's never met every demon that lurks in the hollowed out sections of his heart and soul. But she accepted that when she accepted him, accepted all of him, even the parts he hadn’t been able to yet show her.

Now. Now she thinks that for the first time she sees him and how broken he’s been by the world. It shatters her heart. His eyes vaguely follow her as she steps in close and holds his hand again- all she can think of to do for him.

“It will be all right,” she whispers to him. To her her voice seems small and fragile. But she forces strength in to it as she swallows and says, “I’m going to take off your clothes now and get you cleaned up.”

Before she draws away again she could have sworn he faintly squeezed her hand in response to her words. With fingers she forces to be deft and steady she unties his shirt and lifts it away from him tossing it aside on top of his armour.

Her composure slips when she looks back at him. A small gasp bursts from her lips at the bloody line slashed across his ribs, still gently weeping blood.

“You’re hurt!” she cries, her voice breaking.

He should have told her, she should have noticed; should have felt it through the bond. _The bond_. Still and distant as her mate it shivers if she tugs on it but otherwise remains quiet and numb. She’s used to the ever present music of his soul murmuring to her through it. Without it she feels unsettled and uncomfortable. And achingly aware of a void within her that she doesn’t know how to fill.

Hurrying into the bathing room she returns moments later arms laden with supplies.  She sets them down haphazardly on the desk before leading him to the chair and sitting him down. Hitching up her skirts she sinks onto her knees before him and begins examining the wound.

 With a jolt of shock she realises it’s the same one she felt from him hours before – the one that had nearly killed him. His body is too weary and his strength too exhausted for him to fully heal it. Upon realising it’s not as bad as she had first thought Elain calms herself and refrains from summoning a healer.

They’re bound to be in high demand after the battle, she reasons. And some deep, instinctual part of her doesn’t want anyone else be with him right now. She can’t stand the thought of hands that aren’t hers touching him. Or the idea of anyone else seeing him so shattered and vulnerable. She decides to tend to him herself.

Dipping a rag into the bowl of hot water beside her she raises it and begins to clean the wound as best she can. The taut muscles of his stomach tense in response and she pauses. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs quietly to him, stroking a hand down his skin to soothe him.

He still doesn’t speak but she feels a flutter of quiet reassurance reach her from him through the bond. Relief at the response from him slams into her. The murmur of life from the bond, however small or brief  threatens to undo the iron restraint of her composure. Pressing her lips together Elain makes herself lean forward and continue her work.

When she can better see what she’s dealing with she picks up needle and suturing thread. She had been good at sewing before and had enjoyed it. Feyre, seeing the benefits of sharp eyes and steady hands in the face of the coming war, had instructed several healers teach her everything they could of their arts. This Elain had taken to with a natural skill and flare her tutors had enthusiastically  praised.

It rattles something in her to have to use it on her mate. But she’s thankful to know how –it somehow keeps her from panicking so much. Knowing what to do means she doesn’t need to have anyone else here to intrude upon them; she can take care of him herself. As swiftly and smoothly as she can she carefully closes Lucien’s wound.

Hopefully it shouldn’t take more than a few days to fully heal once his strength returns to him. But she knows it needs to be closed up in the meantime to stop it bleeding and becoming infected. While she works Elain quietly murmurs to him about everything and nothing; wanting to connect them. The thought of letting letting him sit in silence- one his numb will soon no doubt start filling with fresh horrors- is unbearable.

She talks of her garden, the plants she hopes to grow, ones she thinks he’ll like she means to show him. The new things she’s learned to do with her magic. All the while she sends flickers of accompanying thoughts or memories down the bond to help anchor him. 

Gradually she begins to feel it pulse in response as he slowly comes back to himself, back to her. Finishing up she pushes aside the bowl and tests her stitches. They hold well and, satisfied, she coaxes him to his feet. She then resumes undressing him, her eyes keen, ready to react any new injury on him.  

His body is peppered with cuts and bruises which she tries her best to avoid brushing as she removes his clothes. But fortunately none of them are serious. Finally he at last stands before her in nothing but his skin and she leads him through into the bathing room. To her relief the servants have done exactly as she’d asked- prepared them a bath then left them alone.

Elain helps him in to the hot water, keeping a close watch on him as he sinks slowly down into it. As it envelopes him he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. 

****

The steaming bath water begins to soothe his aching, weary muscles. Just as Elain gently soothes his battered, broken soul. Gratitude that she hasn’t pressed him for information details or demanded, as most everyone else has wells up inside him.  The rest of the world always seems to expect him to be all right - even if he's not - but she is only ever patient with him. 

He has no idea how to put it into words, how to explain it to her, what this means to him. When he lifts his head again and meets her soft, empathetic eyes he realises that he doesn’t have to. Never does he need to make excuses with her. Never will she expect more than he can give. Never will she expect or demand or feel entitled to any part of him.

Tears sting in his eyes and he closes them, swallowing tightly past the growing lump in his throat. The numb fog that’s smothered him since the battle thins slightly due to her presence. It stops flooding his lungs and mind making it impossible to breathe or think.  Every small touch wakens the part of his body her tender fingers brush against. For a moment they whisper with life- like plucked harp strings resonating with her music.

The bond between them thrums faintly as she sends her own quiet music down it to try and fill the awful, ringing silence within him. As she settles herself at his back she murmurs softly to him.

Lucien can’t really make out what she says to him, the words blur together too much for him to snatch more than vague fragments of meaning. But the sweet sound of her voice wrapping around him helps. His heart no longer aches quite as much with every beat when it slowly eases back into a rhythm with hers.

Elain lets him soak in peace, struggling not to relive the battle. The things the bloody hands he now hides and steeps beneath the water have done haunt him. All the while he clings to her with a desperate strength. He fights to stop himself slipping back now he’s idle, with nothing to fill his mind but the horrors of war.

But his mate, his perfect, wonderful mate deserves so much better than him. An emissary in a war he should have talked them out of. A warrior that flinches from the violence beckoning him forth. The partner of her light, tender, pure soul has one that is blackened and shattered and stained. But she never complains. Not once. She only loves him and he can never quite bring himself to understand why.

She somehow knows what to do for him now. As her fingers undo the braids she had so carefully crafted for him, she softly sings to him. Her voice gentle and sweet and his whole body stills . Music. Music had always been his escape in the Autumn Court. The ability to create something in a place that had thrived and gloried in death had brought him more comfort than he had ever known how to express. 

Centuries have passed, written in blood and grief and shame. And after what they did, what they took from him- his love, the female he'd believed was his mate. Since then every aching moment has been filled with echoing, haunted silence. After Nara's death he had no desire to play, no desire to fill his heart once more with the sounds she had so adored.

Nothing has been able to kindle that hunger in him again. Nothing. And for three hundred years he has stumbled through the world deaf to something that had once brought him so much joy.

Until now.

Now he feels something stir in him that he was sure was lost, was sure he would never get back, would never even _want_ back. As she sings to him, speaking to whatever fragment of soul understands, he feels himself fall more in love with her than he ever knew was possible.

Bit by bit Elain patiently removes every one of his braids. He tries not to think about all she’ll have to add to them when the time surely comes again. He tries not to think  about enduring _this_ again; tries not to focus on anything that isn’t this moment. Her voice enveloping him, her fingers brushing smoothly through his hair.

At last she draws her violet ribbon, stained and soiled and fraying after the battle from his hair and picks out the last of his braids. Standing she steps in front of him and  removes her dress with nimble efficiency. Allowing it to slide from her in a single, fluid motion, like liquid rippling down her body the fabric pools at her feet. With the gesture she bares herself to him, leaving them both naked before each other.

Then she clambers carefully into the tub. His hand reaches out instinctively as she does so. He braces it around her waist and supports her in case she slips she slowly sinks down on top of him. Their bodies fit perfectly together as always when she settles herself upon him.

Leaning in to him she softly kisses his forehead before, without a word, she begins to wash his hair. There’s an aching _rightness_ to her closeness, to the warmth of her body being entwined with his. Even while still gripped in shock and the aftermath of the battle he finds a sense of peace come over him.

It's the same kind of calm chaos that follows a violent storm. It leaves the world  in ruins and those that survivesurveying the horror and the damage and the loss in mocking, gentle silence. Even through that Lucien manages to  process that this is how things ought to be, that this is where he belongs.

When she finishes rinsing her favourite strawberry scented soap from his hair Elain picks up her cloth and sets to work on his body. With a gentleness he had never truly known before her she washes away the stains of war from his skin.

Blood, some his own, most not, slides from his skin in crimson rivulets. The bath water around them quickly becomes dyed a faint scarlet.  He wants to protest, wants to tell her to leave him, to let him tend to this himself, to avoid her having to bathe with him in the horrors he’s endured.

But one look into her rich, velvet eyes that now contain a faint spark of steel causes his objections to die in his throat before ever reaching his tongue. She’s not going anywhere. Not for anything in the world would she leave him now; and certainly not for a little bit of blood. 

When at last she’s done she drops her soiled red cloth over the side of the tub. The bath then refreshes itself, leaving them floating together in clean, steaming hot water once more. 

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last part. Thank you so much for the comments so far on this fic, they've been very much appreciated!


	4. The Dawn

Lucien watches her closely as she allows herself to properly take him in for the first time since his return. Elain’s hands had been so steady the whole time she had patched his wounds and washed him down. But they now shake uncontrollably as they gently skim over the surface of his skin. She barely dares to make contact, as though she’s afraid he’ll crumble to ash and leave her alone again if she touches him the way she longs to.

Her fingertips whisper like a midnight breeze over the still healing bruises and broken skin that now mar her mate’s body. Mapping them out like scars in the night sky, small tears in an otherwise seamless canvas that now tells her the story of violence he was subjected to. She shivers every time he progress catches on yet another rough, uneven part of him.

Scars don’t usually bother her on him they are only another piece of proof that he’s a fighter, a survivor. But these – these brutal, raw marks that only make her think of the pain he suffered through alone make her stomach turn. And she despises every one of them.

Tracing the wicked slash across his ribs that she had stitched earlier, the one that she  _felt_ tear through him thanks to their bond she trembles. It wouldn't have taken much more for that wound to have been fatal. The realisation how easily she could have lost him today terrifies her.

Flattening her palm against his ribs she closes her eyes. Never has she been so glad of her heightened Fae senses, the ones she’d cursed endlessly for weeks after her Making, than now. It’s as though she holds his heart in her hand. She can feel every beat pulse through her, rapid and frantic but steady and continuous. It's the best thing she’s ever felt in her life.

Slowly, Lucien’s hand lifts from the water, beads of moisture clinging to his skin like tears waiting to fall. Then he tenderly covers her hand with his own, pressing it harder to his chest. Holding it there he silently assures her that what she feels is real, that  _he_ is real. He seems to know the doubts and manic uncertainties that had whirled through her and just how to quiet them. 

Raising her head Elain tentatively opens her eyes and meets his gaze again. Her heart splinters with relief when she finds him looking back at her. He still looks a little dazed and shaken but it's unmistakably him- her Lucien, her mate.

Pressing forwards Elain tenderly kisses his lips, brief but sweet, not wanting to push him or pressure him into giving more than he’s ready too. His other hand lifts from the water to run through her thick golden-brown hair. She feels herself sag against him, nuzzling affectionately into his touch when he gently cups her cheek in his hand.

“You came back to me,” she whispers softly. His thumb drags softly down over her lips, as though he wants to commit every single bow and dip and valley of her body to memory and this is his last chance to do so before she slips away from him again.

“I promised you I would,” he murmurs back, his voice brittle and hoarse.

With heartbreaking tenderness his fingers flutter to settle against her cheek. His thumbs are still gently stroking, connecting them and calming her. Leaning in again Elain cups his face in both hands and kisses him again. 

She kisses him the way she’s wanted to kiss him since he left her. The way she longed to kiss him when she first saw him stumbling up the steps towards her before she saw that he needed her. She kisses him hard and long and deep and slow. Her tongue eases into his mouth as his fingers slide through her hair, pulling her closer, asking for more.

When she finally draws away they’re both breathing hard. Their breath mingles in the fraction of space left between their lips. “I thought you had died,” she blurts out without thinking. The words that have been tearing her apart since she felt that blade tear through him, tear through them both, stumbling out of her now.

Lucien freezes beneath her. But she can’t stop as she strokes his cheeks and trembles and gasps out, “I thought you had died, Lucien. For a moment there – I felt it.” Her fingers trace the wound again. “I  _felt_  it,” she repeats the words choking from her in a broken sob, “I thought I’d lost you. I thought I would never see you again. I thought-“

Lucien folds her tenderly into his arms, cradling her head gently against his chest. Rubbing her back steadily he does the best he can to soothe her. He can’t bear the sound of the crack that splinters through her voice. And he can't stand the pulse of terror he still remembers slamming into him in the midst of battle, forcing him to get up, get up, get  _up._  She had saved his life then, making him rise and live and fight for her.

All he wants is to calm her and comfort her and assure her that everything is fine now. She hasn’t lost him. He’s here, he’s with her, he’s got her and he’s never leaving her again.

“I’m-“ he begins but his throat closes up, refusing to let the word leave him. Elain withdraws slightly to look at him. Swallowing past the tightness in his chest he rasps, “I’m all right-“

The lie cracks on its way out, fissuring through him until he feels himself shatter right in front of her. In truth he’s not all right. And he hasn’t been for a long time.

Bowing his head and looking away from her he begins trembling violently, as though with sudden fever. Struggling furiously with himself he tries to regain his composure tries to find something,  _anything_  to cling to to stop himself losing everything.

When he dares to look up, through the blurred haze of his vision he finds Elain’s eyes. She squeezes his hand once and nods to him before she leans forwards and embraces him. Gathering him into her arms she holds him tightly to her and soothingly strokes back his long hair.

He understands-understands what she wants, understands what she’s encouraging him to do and why. For the first time in centuries Lucien lets himself break down entirely. It starts off small. 

A single, strangled sob manages to slip through the walls and restraints he’s bound and banded himself with for years. Then he feels her arms around him and hears her murmur in his ear, “It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m here, I’ve got you, it’s  _all right_.” And he breaks in her arms.

Every ragged, ruined seam he’s spent decades roughly stitching shut whenever they began to fray splits open. Every faint fracture in his soul shatters into a gaping chasm. Every bit of grief and pain he’s kept locked up inside himself for too long erupts out of him.

She keeps him safe through it all.

She holds him in her arms, holds him close to her, holds him together as best she can. And she shields him from this harsh world when he's at his most vulnerable. Every demon that’s spawned from the ravaged darkness he’s drowned in for centuries rises up to tear him to shreds. But she stops them, sheltering him, refusing to let them touch him.

Shuddering he sobs against her chest as she presses her lips to the top of his head and rubs his back, murmuring to him. Her breath is hot on his head, her small hands are calming and quieting and soothing. He holds nothing back from her, hides nothing from her. He allows the tension that’s suffocated him for centuries to release at last in the safety of her embrace.

He loves her. He loves her own quiet strength, so much greater than his own. He loves her firm, unyielding hope. He loves her tender empathy and compassion. He loves this one person so much. Because she is the one person he can lose himself with and trust to always show him the way back. She is the one person he doesn’t have to constantly be strong for, who will support him sometimes too. She is the one person who loves him without strings or restraints or conditions. She expects no service and forces no horrors upon him to make him prove the depth of his devotion. She simply loves him as he is; as he’s hers.

That one person he loves with all his battered, broken heart.

The bond whispers with her voice that this is all right. It’s all right to be vulnerable and shattered and need people; that it’s all right to not be all right  at all.

Elain holds him the entire time, never shrinking or flinching from him. Even as his chest aches, his ribs seize up and his throat turns raw and stings with every ragged breath she only holds him. She murmurs soft, soothing words to him. Her fingers softly stroke through his hair while she rubs his back and rocks him gently back and forth in her arms.

At last his sobs begin to subside and he’s able to suck down deep, gasping gulps of air he clings to her. Mechanically dragging his fingers through her hair he chokes out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Elain, I’m-“

Hushing him she draws back and slides her fingers under his chin and makes him look up at her. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she growls quietly to him, her voice trembling with emotion. “Do you hear me?” she demands, “ _Nothing_.”

Overcome, Lucien only nods hopelessly and pulls her to him again, unable to bear the sudden space that keeps him from her. They hold each other, Elain resuming her gentle rubbing of his scarred back while he peppers her soft, creamy skin with gentle kisses.

“You will be all right,” she promises him softly. Reaching up she gently wipes away the fresh tears that fall from his eyes before she takes his hand in hers and squeezes it. “ _We’ll_  get through this,” she tells him, putting a firm emphasis on the first word. “Together,” she adds and he looks up at her.

Gentle and quiet and unassuming, his mate, his Elain. But she has more strength than any who were on that killing field with him today. It's  a strength that is too easily overlooked and underestimated. But he cherishes it and cherishes her. His mate – his  _mate_.

He kisses her again.

****

Love ripples through her in great pulsing waves as the bond between them bursts into life again. It bridges them and connects them in a way that suggests not even death could part them and stop her sensing him ever again.

Sinking in to his kiss Elain closes her eyes and parts her lips for his tongue, whimpering faintly at his taste. Lucien’s hand cradles the back of her head and his fingers slide deep into her hair always pulling her closer, closer, closer.

Rubbing noses with him when they finally draw away she settles herself against him, head on its accustomed place on his shoulder. He still shudders from time to time, causing her to grip him a little more tightly, anchoring him to her, reminding him of where he is and what’s real.

Each time he gently kisses the top of her head in silent thanks and she nuzzles affectionately into his neck. When she shivers he heats the water around him with a trickle of his magic and cups it in his hand, tipping it over her exposed skin to keep her warm.

They hold each other for a long time until the sun begins to descend, staining the sky with deep reds and oranges then a rich indigo as it slides even further beneath the lip of the horizon. Reluctantly, Elain withdraws from Lucien’s tender, warm embrace and clambers carefully from the tub and into a towel.

Turning she coaxes Lucien out after her wrapping him in the same large, fluffy towel with her. They dry themselves and Elain shrugs on a light robe before helping Lucien dress. She helps him in to thin, loose clothes that won’t make him feel as though he’s being suffocated by the fabric.

Taking his hand in hers once more she guides him out of the bathing room. One look at his face, the way the little colour he’s regained drains from it and she understands, feeling the fear rippling through him. He can’t bear the thought of sinking in to bed or sleep just yet. Despite the fact he’s utterly exhausted, she knows he’s petrified of the nightmares that will no doubt find him in that darkness.

 Tugging gently she leads him out onto the terrace instead where the balmy even spring air welcomes them out with a soft caress. Steering him down onto their usual perch on the old rocking chair set amidst the many pots that burst with her plants she settles him there. Smiling as he looks up at her expectantly and opens his arms wide in silent invitation to join him.

Elain lowers herself down into his lap, curling up like a cat, tucking her legs beneath her and nestling in to him. Stretching one of his legs out in front of him he rocks them back and forth in a slow, easy rhythm. Elain rests her head on his chest and he rests his chin on top, enveloping her body with his own.

Her sensitive Fae ears are able to hear his heart beat clearly when she rests her head on his chest. It still pounds in a frantic, desperate rhythm against his ribs, like the galloping hooves of war horses in the midst of a charge. Raising herself slightly she peers sternly up at him, palm braced against his ribs. “Do you feel panicky?” she asks him, voice sharper than she'd intended.

Eyes distant he shakes his head, throat bobbing as he swallows. “It’s just battle fever,” he murmurs. His voice is still unusually rough and hoarse, “It’ll pass.”

Pursing her lips she watches him intently for another few moments. However his breathing remains even and he seems otherwise all right so she allows herself to lie back down against him. Absently, as though not consciously under orders to do so Lucien’s hand lifts and begins to trail up and down her spine. He does this sometimes, allowing his fingers to softly feather over her body. She loves it. 

“Lucien,” she murmurs quietly, hand splaying across his heart.

“Mm?” He looks down at her, meeting her wide brown eyes.

“Please,” she pauses, nails flexing to clench his shirt as she takes a deep, shuddering breath to compose herself. Lucien waits patiently, still rubbing her back in big, broad circular motions, reminding her he’s here. “Please never scare me like that again,” she whispers against him as she burrows in against his chest.

Placing one hand on the back of her head Lucien lightly kisses her brow, soothing her. “I love you,” she mumbles, grabbing a thick fistful of his shirt as though she never means to let him go again, and maybe she never will. “I love you, Lucien. I need you. I can’t lose you. I can’t, please,  _please_. I love you.”

He tenderly kisses the top of her head, cradling, her to him and sending soft pulses of reassurance down the bond to her to comfort her and calm her.

****

Lucien continues to rock them back and forth, wrapping his hands around her ankles and gently drawing her closer to him. “I’m here,” he murmurs onto her hair, “I’m here and I have no plans to ever leave you, Elain.”

She huffs affectionately against his cheek before kissing it softly then settling back down. Sensing her exhaustion Lucien begins gently rubbing her back again. “Sleep dove,” he murmurs to her, kissing her temple.

Yawning she nestles into him and he feels the ghost of a smile dare to whisper across his lips in response to her. It doesn’t take her long to drop off in his arms. He remains watching her as she begins to mumble incoherently but peacefully to herself. The first time she’d done that in bed beside him he’d jumped so hard it had woken her up with a little yelp. Now he finds it oddly calming- something familiar and constant, somethingthat’s achingly  _her_.

He can’t sleep. Every time he dares to close his eyes he relives the battle. Images flash through his mind like lightning through a black sky. The Fae he slaughtered, their blood hot on his skin as Nara's had been when his father butchered her before him. Their dying screams echoing on and on and on in his head. The clash of steel still shudders through his aching bones.

 The battle still rages and rages on inside him using his soul as its battlefield. His heartstrings twanging like bows. His heart hammers like the ceaseless drums. His blood is the rain that burst from the heavens when the clouds split like the skin of his foes. His hollow lungs are torn up to make weary banners. While the never ending orders- _to fight, to rage, to die, to defy, to live-_ shudder through his splintering bones.

Trembling, Lucien buries his face in her soft hair, breathing her in deep to help soothe him and ground him.  _Not real. Not real. Not real, not real, not real, not real,_ he tells himself. But it was real. That blood would stain his hands and haunt his soul for years to come.

Elain reaches out in her sleep, her hand wrapping around the collar of his shirt and closes around the thin fabric, clinging tightly to him. The sight soothes him somehow. That she is still there for him, still finding ways to comfort him even in her sleep. Then her scent,  _their_ scent, home, washes over him again and Lucien feels his pounding heart steady and calm for her.

After a long while spent in her embrace he collects up the final few lost parts of himself Lucien takes a deep breath and braces himself. The sun has set fully now and there’s a sharp chill in the air he knows will soon wake his mate if they remain out here.

Gathering her securely in his arms Lucien stands and carries her into the bedroom. She stirs in his arms but doesn’t wake, only nestles more closely against him when he lifts her. She sleeps on when he peels back the sheets and lays her down on it but her hand reaches out, searching blindly for him on some buried instinct.

Smiling softly Lucien settles himself on the bed beside her, curling an arm around her and drawing her in close. At once she burrows against his chest before she stills contentedly against him. Fingers absently trailing through her hair he strokes it tenderly back from her beautiful face. Lucien gazes down at her in awe. Not for the first time he finds himself wondering how something so perfect, so gentle and kind and  _pure_ , can possibly be his. He doesn't understand why the Mother would have blessed him so.

He watches her sleep for a long time, finding a sense of calm in her gentle dreams. The whole time she remains pressed tightly against him, as though even in sleep she’s reluctant to let him go or be separated from him again. He knows how much it terrified her, how much she had hated being alone and apart from him while he was in danger and she could do nothing. And while he’d have given everything he was and has and might have become to keep her away from that battle a part of him felt otherwise. The part that marks the spot where the bond connects him to her understands because it longed for her to be by his side.

Now his soul hums peacefully at the rightness of this moment. He might still be broken and shattered and utterly terrified of what’s to come but in this moment he is where he belongs – safe in the arms of his mate.

Slowly, her quiet presence lulls him into enough calm that he’s finally able to give in to the demands of his wrecked, aching body. Still holding Elain close to him he sinks into his own uneasy dreams beside her.

****

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading all of this if you've made it this far! Comments on how this felt as a whole would be very much appreciated. Thank you for all of your support so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is greatly appreciated if you have a moment! ^_^


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